Fru Lagerlöf and Back-Kaisa agreed with her, and were for going home. But Lieutenant Lagerlöf stuck to his point. There was no fear but they’d get aboard all right, he said. This was perhaps their one chance of a lifetime to see how it looked on a merchant vessel; and they ought not to miss such an opportunity.
“But once we’re up we’ll never be able to get down again,” argued Mamselle Lovisa.
They met a boat laden with sacks.
“See that boat, Lovisa?” the Lieutenant said. “Do you know what’s in those sacks?”
“My dear Gustaf,” returned Mamselle Lovisa wearily, “how should I know?”
“Well, they’re sacks of salt from the Jacob,” the Lieutenant informed her. “They have neither arms nor legs, yet they’ve come off the ship; so surely you should be able to do it.”
“You ought to dress up once in crinoline and long skirts,” snapped Mamselle Lovisa, “then perhaps you’d not be so brave.”
They went on like that the whole way out to the ship. The little girl who so longed to meet the bird of paradise wished with all her heart that her father might induce her aunt and the others to go on board; though she, too, thought they could never in the world get up there.
All the same they presently lay-to under a swaying rope-ladder. A couple of sailors jumped into the boat to help them with the climb. The first to be taken was the little sick girl. One of the sailors boosted her to his comrade, who bore her up the ladder and put her down on the deck; here he left her to go and help the others.
She found herself standing quite alone on a narrow strip of deck. Before her opened a great yawning hole, at the bottom of which something white was being put into sacks. She stood there a long while. Some of the folks down in the boat must have raised objections to climbing the ladder, since no one appeared. When the little girl had got her bearings, she glanced about for the bird of paradise. She looked up at the rigging and tackle. She had pictured the bird as being at least as large as a turkey, and easy for the eye to find.